The Order of the Kingdom
© 2012 by Tudor Bismark Ministries
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress—Catalogued in the Publication Data Bismark, Tudor
ISBN: 978-1-4750823-3-3
Published by CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781623094164
Printed in the United States of America by Tudor Bismark Ministries
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Most word studies come from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong care of Hendrickson Publishers.
Most definitions come from Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary or Merriam-Webster online.
Introduction
Week One: Fruitfulness
Introduction
Audio Summary
1 First, the Cutting
2 Dominion is Fruitfulness
3 Releasing the New Idea
4 A Violent Response
5 Sowing Kingdom Seed
Week Two: The Way Mantles Pass On
Introduction
Audio Summary
1 Reproducing Jesus
2 Seek & Think the Kingdom
3 The Process of Fruitfulness
4 Spheres of Government
5 Life with a Mantle
Week Three: Influence
Introduction
Audio Summary
1 The Influence of Salt
2 Trodden Under the Foot of Men
3 Get Understanding
4 Attributes of Strategic Thinking I
5 Attributes of Strategic Thinking II
Kingdom Models
Principal Spices v. Sweet Spices
Week Four: Order Versus Disorder
Introduction
Audio Summary
1 People, Places, & Things
2 Elimelech & Samson: Disorder = Death
3 Disorder in Places of Order
4 A Practical Look at Order
5 When Disorder Becomes Order
Kingdom Models
Generational Disorder
Week Five: Ordained Order
Introduction
Audio Summary
1 The Dominion of Disorder
2 No Unity, No Order
3 Order Saves the World
4 Order as a God Trait
5 An Ordered Life is a Longer Life
Kingdom Models
Breeding Disorder
Week Six: Order Produces Prosperity
Introduction
Audio Summary
1 Seven Manifestations of Water
2 Reflections on Fruitfulness
3 Controlling the Fishing Rights
4 Reflections on Order and Disorder
5 The Mobility of Order
This study about the Kingdom of God will not deal with the basic dynamics of Kingdom theology and Kingdom structure. This building block study will instead address how to establish order in your personal life, thus creating a counter culture of order in the body of Christ and society at large.
And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
Acts 28:30–31
When Paul was under house arrest in Acts 28, he wrote much of what we have as New Testament record. While under house arrest, the Scripture says that he preached the Kingdom and taught Christ. The foundational truth set forth in this study is that we must preach the Kingdom of God and we must teach the things that concern Christ.
Jesus is our ultimate example. He preached the Kingdom in his actions, and then explained to the disciples what happened. Apostle Paul followed suit and in preaching the Kingdom demonstrated the Kingdom as well. Demonstration occurs so that there will be a witness of the gospel of the Kingdom. The witness is the demonstration of dominion in the lives of the people that have been saved.
Each week in these lessons you will be introduced to the Kingdom perspective on the following topics:
· Fruitfulness
· The Way Mantles Pass On
· Influence
· Order versus Disorder
· Ordained Order
· Order Produces Prosperity
In order to get the most from this study, please read this overview to become acquainted with the format. These lessons are targeted for individual study between corporate sessions. To help you get the most out of this study on order, we’ve included the following with the edited transcript of the audio presentations in each chapter:
· Kingdom Guarantee—There are many biblical references to the Kingdom of God—what it is, how it operates, who is and is not included, as well as its impact on the world. In addition to the Scripture focus for each lesson, these snapshot verses will deepen your insight into the Kingdom of God
· Codes of the Kingdom—In the DVD and audio presentations of Kingdomology, Bishop Bismark shares some powerful, life-impacting statements about the Kingdom of God. To help keep your study of these lessons in proper context, we include a few of his trademark one-liners.
· Kingdom Models—Interspersed throughout this guide are Bishop Bismark’s explanations of concepts on the Kingdom of God. These are intended to enrich your understanding and help you increase in wisdom.
This is a 6-week interactive course designed to assist you in your development in the Kingdom of God. The first five weeks each have five lessons to assist you in understanding and applying the DVD and audio content. The last week includes commonly asked questions about the Kingdom, Bishop Bismark’s answers, and room for you to make notes about the concepts. Following the introduction for each week of lessons is the edited transcript of the DVD presentation.
Week One:
Fruitfulness
The lessons in this first week set the stage for the rest of the study. Fruitfulness is essential in the life of the believer—personally, in the church, and in executing the mission of the church in the world. It is the first part of the original command,
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:28 (emphasis added)
Prepare yourself to be challenged and called to a higher level of action and personal accountability. We begin in lesson one with a look at the pruning process, the cutting necessary to guarantee fruit production. In lesson two we will see how the dominion mandate of Genesis 1 is expressed in a fruitful life. Lesson three addresses strategy on how to release new ideas. In lesson four we will deal with the proper positioning of the Body of Christ to our Head. Finally, lesson five lays out for us how to sow Kingdom seed.
Because we have already done work concerning the Kingdom—you know, we’ve got the book Kingdom in Motion and we’ve got a couple of things coming up after that—we are not going to deal with the basic dynamics of Kingdom theology and Kingdom structure. Jesus makes this statement,
And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.
Matthew 24:14
All of that becomes very significant in the way the Kingdom of God is structured. This gospel shall be preached to all the world for a witness—a witness to all nations. That’s people groups; ethnic groups will each individually have an opportunity to witness the demonstration of God’s Kingdom.
And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the Kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
Acts 28:30–31
Hired house there [means] that Paul was actually under house arrest. He was waiting to be summoned to meet Caesar so they put him under house arrest with armed guards to make sure he didn’t leave for two years. This was a wonderful work of the Holy Spirit because in these two years, Paul was forced to write. He was not now traveling and starting churches as he was doing before. He was forced to put a lot of what we have on paper [now]; he was writing there.
But notice what he did in verse 31. He’s under house arrest. He’s there for two whole years. But while he’s there, he’s preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching those things that concern the Lord Jesus Christ. So the principle is that the Kingdom has to be preached and Christ has to be taught. You can’t preach Christ and teach the Kingdom. You have to preach the Kingdom and teach Christ. That’s the principle. If you reverse it, you’re not going to get the desired result. To prove that, let’s go to Acts 1.
This is the writing of the Apostle Luke as he is writing to Theophilus. This is his second presentation to Theophilus. And he says to Theophilus in chapter one of Acts, starting from verse one,
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
Notice that. He [Jesus] did it first, and then he taught what He just did. You preach it first, and then you teach what you’ve just done. The Kingdom has to be demonstrated, so when Paul was preaching the gospel, he was demonstrating the Kingdom. It’s a demonstration. It is an enactment. It is actions, and then you teach what’s just been acted out. That’s what the Kingdom of God does, and in that same chapter of Acts 1 they asked Jesus,
When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the Kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath in put his in his own power.
Acts 1:6–7
In other words, “I am not going to restore the Kingdom of God right now, but it’s going to be in a process of time. This gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations.” There has to be a witness to all nations. The witness is not just having a presence of the Word, where you get a whole bunch of people saved in El Salvador and a whole bunch of people saved in Pakistan. That’s not a witness; that’s just a whole bunch of people hearing the gospel and getting saved.
The witness is the demonstration of dominion in the lives of the people that have been saved. That’s the witness. It’s the demonstration of dominion. You get millions of Africans saved, millions of Africans saved, and [with] many of the Africans that are saved there’s no demonstration of dominion. [They are] still sick, ignorant, backward, no future, sitting on goldmines and can’t do anything with it. That’s not a testimony [or] a witness of dominion.
So, in this first presentation on Kingdomology, we want to talk about fruitfulness.
And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
John 12:23–24
So the principle is that if you’re going to be fruitful, if you’re going to be producing much fruit, there has to be death first. Jesus said in John 15, “I am the true vine [and] you are the branches. Every branch that does not produce fruit, I cut it off and I throw it into the fire because it’s good for nothing. Every branch that does bear fruit,” He says, “I’ll cut that one too. I prune it so that it can produce quality fruit.”
So, in the church, you have two levels of cutting. [First there is] stuff that has to be cut and done away with because it’s unproductive, it’s not fruitful. But then there’s stuff that is fruitful; it’s still going to be cut. Now when you are entering the Kingdom of God in the process of being fruitful, I want to give you a number of processes that God takes you through to make you fruitful.
The first one is the process of cutting or circumcision. Circumcision is where, in a male child, the flesh is cut. That cutting of the flesh produces covenant. So anytime God is going to cut flesh on your life, it then authorizes you legitimately and legally through Kingdom dynamics to reproduce. So anytime a man or a woman that’s going to go to a higher level of ministry to be fruitful in the Kingdom, you have to be cut. Sometimes God will cut your ear; the ear has to be circumcised so that you can hear stuff that other people don’t hear.
In Acts 16, Paul saw Timothy and said, “I’ve got to have that kid.” And the Bible says Paul took Timothy and circumcised him. That’s really interesting because in chapter fifteen Paul spent days and weeks fighting against the elders in Israel because they were insisting that Gentile males be circumcised. And Paul said, “We’re not circumcising these guys,” but in chapter 16 he says, “I’m not taking Timothy until he’s circumcised.” Because they were saying circumcision is important for salvation. Paul was saying circumcision in Timothy’s case is important because this circumcision is to mark him for ministry.
So anytime you are in the Kingdom of God to be fruitful, the circumcision of your lips—the cutting away of certain things that you should not say and cannot say—is the marking of ministry. The circumcision of your eye is where God cuts the flesh from your eyes so that you see things others don’t see and you walk in ministry principles that others do not walk in. Jesus said if that seed does not go into the ground and die, if that flesh is not cut away, it abides alone. But once it is been removed—once the previous world has been removed—at that point you will bring forth not fruit, you will bring forth much fruit. Everyone say, “Much fruit.”
God never blesses unfruitfulness. He never blesses unfruitfulness. If you study Old Testament teaching, a woman that was barren could not enter into the presence of the Lord. A woman while she was on her monthly period was not allowed to touch anything because that’s the point when she was the most unproductive. She could not get pregnant even if she tried. And anyone or anything that she touched, and anyone that touched what she touched when she was on her monthly period was made unclean because that was the impartation of unproductiveness. God only blesses fruitful things. Everyone say, “Fruitful.” Of all the things that we have to be in the Kingdom, we have to be fruitful.
So now let’s go to the keynote Scriptures in Genesis 1:27. The Bible says in [verse] 26 that God created man in His image [and] after His likeness, and God gave the man dominion—over fish of the sea, and over every creeping thing.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion…
Genesis 1:27–28
And God blessed them—not him, them. They got equal blessing. Male and female got equal blessing. God never put the man here and spoke a blessing on the man, and then came here and addressed the women and gave them a lesser blessing. They got exactly the same blessing. They got exactly the same blessing, and this is what he blessed them to be.
1. Fruitful.
2. Multiply your fruitfulness. Take what you’ve multiplied to an area that doesn’t have your fruitfulness.
3. Replenish that area with your fruitfulness.
4. When you saturate an area with your fruitfulness, your fruitfulness will subdue that area. That whole area will then become subservient to your fruitfulness.
5. And then you will have dominion.
So let’s put in terms of, let’s say, Toyota. Toyota then, which is a Japanese motor vehicle company, goes to Mexico. There are no Toyotas there, and Mexico’s enjoying an American market—you’ve got GM there, you have Ford, Chrysler, and all the other stuff you all can choose from up here. So Toyota goes to Mexico. The first thing they are going to do in Mexico is they are going to be fruitful. In other words, they are going to produce Toyotas. Then they are going to multiply Toyotas, and they are going to take Toyotas to every city where there’s no Toyotas. So they are going to replenish the cities with what they don’t have.
And when people start seeing Toyotas, the Toyota product is going to start taking dominion because if you put a Toyota engine against your Ford engine your Ford engine is only good for 100,000 miles. Then it starts coughing blood. But those Toyota engines, you can get 300,000 miles and they still want to go. So, that Toyota engine now, starts subduing the market and they start taking dominion. So after five [or] ten years, folks don’t want your big gas guzzlers. They want a Toyota. It’s a principle. It’s true with Sony cameras. It’s true with IBM computers. Watch the MAC computers. In just a short space of time, everybody everywhere is going to want a MAC. I wonder if I want one, but everybody’s going to want a MAC because of the principle.
And the reason the church and the reason believers don’t have dominion is because we never multiply our fruitfulness. We never take our fruitfulness into areas that don’t have our product. Therefore, we never subdue that area. And that’s why we don’t have dominion.
If you take American Airlines as an airline, the reason it does not have strength and dominion in the markets of Asia and in the markets of Europe is because American doesn’t operate there. But if American Airlines got the license to go to Europe and to Asia with the kind of stuff you do on time, and so no, and you start filling that market with your fruitfulness, it’s just a matter of time that some of those airlines will be squeezed out of the market. Fruitfulness will always produce dominion. Fruitfulness will always produce dominion—whether it’s your church, whether it’s a business, whether it’s your life, whether it’s a football team. Fruitfulness will always produce dominion.
Now, here is the reason you have to be fruitful. Some of the challenges that individuals have in terms of fruitfulness, they challenge with the initial groundbreaking process. Jesus said if a grain of wheat is poured into the ground, it abides alone. In other words, it’s now going to be facing the kinds of forces—earth forces, I call them cosmic earth forces—on your own. You know that God is with you; there are prophetic words there, but the breaking forth process is very, very difficult. Now let’s deal with some of these dynamics [in] Genesis 1.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Watch me. Darkness is on the face of the deep. So the whole world is covered by water. The reason we can’t find deep things is because many times we never find the face of the deep thing. Every deep thing has a face, and if you can’t find its face, you’ll never be able to access the depth of what’s beyond its face. And a lot of times there’s a shadow on the face of something deep. The enemy tries to hide the deep things. That’s why Israel never got the true brunt of what Moses was trying to teach. Because every time the glory of God would be shining through Moses’ face, he had to put a veil on his face. And because his face was covered, they had no access to deep things. They had no access to deep things. The reason the children of Israel in Jesus’ day lost their blessing is because instead of looking in Jesus’ face they tore the beard off of His face and they were messing up the leadership He was demonstrating. That’s why they could not access deep things. So, even God Himself, for Him to get the deep things of the cosmic world had to get the face of the deep first before He could alter and redirect deep things. And when He does that then He begins to separate the water and the land.
Now, after He separates the water in one place [and] calls it the sea and the land comes into exposure. The water always speaks of Spirit things; the land always speaks of foundations [and] solid things. You can’t work on foundational things if all you do is spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit, spirit. You can’t do that. So if you’re a wife and all you do is spend 24 hours a day at church speaking in tongues—no meals, no laundry, no fun, no fun—then you’re going to have some serious problems in the house. And if you’re a man and you just spend 24 hours a day at church, you know, and everything is shan-dai-hi-abiya-bowshai there is no balance and coordination there. You’re not going to be fruitful.
So the first thing He does is separate the water and puts it in one place and calls it the sea. And the land appears. When the land appears, He works on the land first although the water was in appearance first. Because you have to work on things you can see first before you can work on things that you cannot see. The water connotes the Spirit; it is stuff you are hoping things will come to pass. But in the land it’s things you can see and demonstrate. In other words, get what you can see in order. What you can see, get in order.
You want to counsel someone else in their marriage whose life is messed up, yours right here—you can see it—is messed up. Get this one fixed first. In other words, you’ve got something in your eye and somebody’s got something in their eye. You’ve got this whole forest in your eye and you want to take out a speck from someone else’s eye. You know, get the brothers to help you come sort out your landscaping in your eye. Let them come and landscape your eye before you go take the speck out of Mrs. Bouquet’s garden. See what I’m saying? What he’s saying is that if you have a log in your eye—log there means that your revelation knowledge [and] your ability to see is very inhibited—somebody might have a speck which taints their view. You’ve got to rid of all this stuff first. So you see with a clear eye so you can help the brother clear their eye. So, in other words, you work on stuff you can see first before you work on stuff that you can’t see. It’s a Scriptural principle. That’s the road to becoming fruitful. You work on what you can see first.
Now, one of my favorite principles is [in] Genesis 1:11. I love this principle; I’ve been preaching this for many, many years. I’m compiling a series of lessons right now which is the “one-verse-one” principle. Every [chapter] one-verse-one in the Bible is going to be a 66-message series on the one-verse-ones of the Bible. It’s absolutely mind blowing. Genesis 1:1 [11?] says this,
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Genesis 1:11
He put every tree into the ground that had fruit within itself, and the fruit had a seed, and the seed had the ability to produce its next generation after its kind. Anytime you have anything produced on an earthly level, it has the capacity to produce fruit. And from the capacity to produce fruit there is a seed within it to produce the next generation. This is such an important principle because everything on this level—good or bad—becomes fruit producing on the next level. Say, “Make me fruitful.”
But the way God wants us to be fruitful is in Kingdom things. If we’re not producing Kingdom things, we are producing stuff that works against the Kingdom. If you’re not producing Kingdom fruit, you are producing tares. You look like wheat, but you’re producing tares. You’re not supposed to be producing tares; you’re supposed to be producing wheat. You look like the real deal, but you’re not producing the real deal. You are a bowl of water instead of being a bowl of wine. You’re supposed to be producing Kingdom things. At weddings people don’t drink water. I know you’re saved, but at weddings people don’t drink water. In Jesus’ day, at least, they want[ed] wine. And so when Jesus comes there, He’s not going to give them the washing of the water by the Word. They need the new wine, and He’s going to give them some new wine. He said in Isaiah that the new wine is in the cluster.
The Kingdom, then, produces fruit. And the reason at this wedding that they have to have wine—there’s one reason they have to have wine—is that God wants them so drunk that they lose all their faculties. Because when you leave the wedding feast on your way home you’re not supposed to drive. You can’t drink and drive. And so the Holy Spirit says to you, “You sit in the back seat. I’ll drive your vision. I’ll drive your future. I’ll drive your destiny.” While you’re not drunk you want to put your hands on the steering wheel of your life. And if your hands are on the steering wheel of your life, you’ll turn that car at the wrong exit because that’s the way you feel you ought to go. He wants you so drunk after being married to Kingdom things. And He starts driving your vision and your life. He’s going to drive you to fruitfulness.
I can guarantee you—the Bible doesn’t say that but there are strong implications—that this couple at this first wedding they attended based on almost every single marriage case you see in the Scripture of Kingdom producing women I can almost guarantee you that this girl that was married, being a virgin girl, was barren. I can almost guarantee she was barren. She had not been tested. And what saved her was the fact that Jesus came there and turned her natural life (water) into wine and made her highly productive. The fruit of the vine imparted into her spirit. Everyone say, “Make me fruitful.” God only blesses fruitfulness. God only blesses fruitfulness.
Watch me very carefully now as we begin to build this case for being fruitful. Every seed that’s in itself produces fruit. And the fruit that is produced, then, is going to be used to rebuild what’s coming in the future. Let’s go now to Matthew 24.
And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? Verily I say unto you, there shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
Matthew 24:1–2
Here they are in the temple—a magnificent temple. They are looking at this thing and they say to Jesus, “Wow! Check out the temple.” In other words, look at the fruit of what a man has built. Look at it. And Jesus said, “I’m telling you, there won’t be one stone left upon another.” There’s a day coming [when] one stone won’t be left upon another. Now, let’s go to John 2:19.
Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up again in three days?
John 2:19–20
This is after this tremendous wedding I mentioned a few minutes ago. The Jews said, “We built this temple.” The same one the disciples looked at. They said, “It took 46 years for us to build this temple, and you’re going to raise it up in three days?” But He was not speaking of the physical temple. He was speaking about His own body.
Now watch this. In the history of Israel, there were three temples built. The first one was Solomon’s temple. Solomon’s temple was built with Kingdom precision. All of the quarry work was done offsite. And when they assembled that temple, it was assembled with no hurt, no struggle, with no battle. Everything was just slipped together in place. In other words, we do all the Kingdom warfare out there, but when we build the house of God we are doing it as a community of people that are fruitful in peace. Every person that built Solomon’s temple was prosperous, very wealthy, very productive [and] very skilled.
The second temple that was built was the temple during Nehemiah’s day. He had to get prophets—Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the prophet—to really prophesy to get the people out of their slavery mentality to bring their resources to build the temple. And the older men that saw the new temple based on the structure of the old temple wept when they saw that temple go up. The Bible says they wept for two reasons: 1) there had been no temple for over 70 years and 2) they remembered the former days and the glory days. And the prophet then says, “Remember ye not the former days for the glory for the glory of the latter house shall be greater than the glory of the former house.” He doesn’t say the latter house shall be greater than the former house. He says the glory will be greater.
Because if you take Solomon’s temple the way it was built with all the money that was spent, that building cost him over a trillion dollars. The building that Nehemiah and that generation built was not even one-tenth of the value of Solomon’s temple. So in terms of its glory, it wasn’t glorious. But the way it was earned, the battle that earned the construction of this temple was more glorious. It was way more glorious and the Lord was reminding them in Haggai 2, “You’re looking at Solomon’s temple with all the gold and silver and money he spent.” God said, “The gold is mine. The silver is mine. But what you’re building here with the lack of gold and silver, I’m looking at the glory as to how you earned this, how you have become fruitful. Through demonic slavery and tyranny I want to see fruitfulness because I bless fruitfulness.” And so that temple was destroyed during the Maccabee struggles. That’s after the book of Malachi. And then the Herods are raised up.